Motorola SLVR L7 music phone

Review According to the 'word on the street', there are two reasons why you would want Motorola's SLVR phone over any other. The first is the dimensions of the device and the second that it's the second phone from Motorola to offer users iTunes software.

The first point is very true. The SLVR is incredibly slim: it's just 1.2cm thick, and this means you can happily tuck it in a trouser pocket without every girl you talk thinking you've got other things on your mind. In profile, it's 11.4 x 4.9cm...

But the claim that this is the second iTunes phone might be true in America, but alas here in the UK, it's not, at least not yet.

We asked Motorola why the phone was lacking perhaps the one key feature aside from the design and the reply was a simple "no comment". It's a strange omission especially considering that the phone is shipping with the software in other territories. Perhaps it's because the company is still suffering from reported poor sales of the ROKR.

Get past this and the phone doesn't really offer much beyond the design. Yes, there's a media player capable of playing MP3 or AAC tracks. Yes, there's Bluetooth. Yes, there's a 64MB Transflash (aka Micro SD) card in the box to get you started - there's a mere 5MB of on-board memory. But we've rather come to expect all this from a phone purporting to be multimedia all singing all dancing models, so it's really nothing to shout about.

Like the RAZR before it, the face of the SLVR is flat and its keypad made from laser-cut aluminium. The keypad is better than the RAZR's, however, thanks to the slightly raised numbers, which helps locate them when you're texting. As before, the phone glows in that blue Tron-like state whenever you start pressing buttons.

The phone does have a quad-band (850/900/1800/1900MHz) GSM/GPRS radio. There's no EDGE support. The screen is a 176 x 220 job capable of showing 262,000-colours - a fairly common spec nowadays.

But what about the camera, I hear you cry? A disappointing 640 x 480 model with a 4x digital zoom and auto-focus facility, and certainly not up to the megapixel variants you find as standard on even entry-level phones from other manufacturers.

Verdict

We're flummoxed. Why did Motorola opt not to bring the iTunes software to UK users? Aside from the slim design that's is really the only thing this phone has going for it.

The inclusion of a VGA camera shows that Motorola still hasn't really taken on board people's desire to take digital photos with their phone and while the omission of a megapixel digicam on the RAZR could be accounted for it being early on to the scene, the fact that the SLVR hasn't kept up with other manufacturers in this area is disappointing.

This phone will garner lots of wows when you take it out of your pocket. But if you do buy it, just don't let people know that the insides are lacklustre.